Response 4

I found Wrist Trick very interesting in the way that it combines separate short rapid shots of hands and a banana, progressively more peeled, to create the effect of the hands peeling the banana. You can tell that the banana and the hands are not in the same shot but it looks like superimposition, which after multiple pauses I realized it wasn't. What a Trick! It also creates a flicker effect with the varying positive and negative images which assists in the effect by dissorienting the viewer and forcing them to make connections between the shots. I was likewise tricked by Disappearing Music for Face which plainly presents in ECU a gaped tooth smile which loses its expression very, very, very slowly. I stopped paying attention to the mouth thinking that it was not presenting any particularly interesting aspect to the film. I began focusing on the glare coming off of the subject's face seeing that the light changes slightly with each frame, convinced that it was the minimalist theme of the film. Then I realized that the mouth was no longer smiling and I had to go back to review what I had missed. The change was so subtle and that I missed it even while I was staring at the film. It was like a long shot where you might not notice two characters interacting, but more intentional. The fact that the change of face is so important yet so easily impercievable is what stood out the most to me in this short film.

1. What films did Jonas Mekas associate with “Baudelairean Cinema,” and why did he call it that?
Jonas Mekas associates Ron Rice's The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man, Jack Smith's The Flaming Creatures, Ken Jacobs' Little Stabs at Happiness, and Bob Fleischners's Blonde Cobra with Baudelairean Cinema Blond Cobra being its "masterpiece". Mekas calls upon the great writers of decadence, Buadalaire, Marquis de Sade, and Rimbaud, to typify his association of these films as a bridge between Romanticism and Modernism; calling upon both the radiant and the sordid to create a yin-yang effect on screen (which is particularly interesting in black and white, where black most often seems to take over). Mekas says that Blonde Cobra is "one of the greatest works of personal cinema" but he also thinks authorship is ridiculous. I guess it is hard to not consider authorship when your associating great poetry with great films. " 'Life Swarms with innocent monsters.' Charles Baudelaire" is a double quote that is from Blonde Cobra. This film was blatantly asking for someone to make this association.

2. How did Jonas Mekas’s views on experimental cinema change between 1955 and 1961?

Mekas was always a Romanticist and did not recognize and romantic ability in the avant-garde until the early sixties and the mythopoeic films. In 1955 Jonas Mekas believed that American filmmakers were a "degenerative" force on the medium and should focus less on the technique of the medium and more on the thematic elements of human nature. With the tremendous influence of the nouvelle vague and indigenous realism "he gradually began to see more in the films he had previously rejected." In 1960 he even called for a foundation of a "cooperative distribution center" for the avant-garde, and in 1961 he gave Brakhage the "fourth Independent Film Award for The Dead and Prelude: Dog Star Man". Soon he after became a huge distributor and supporter of American independent avant-garde films.

3. How did Mekas’s interest in performance and improvisation shape his views of the New American Cinema in the 1960s?

Mekas had set his roots in the study of Stanislavsky. Therefore he saw the actors imagination as a connection to reality and thus creating realistic imaginary circumstances. The Stanislavsky method is precisely the method to achieve the "breakdown of the difference between performer and role"; because it is intended to make the character and the performer indistinct from each other in performance. To me it seems that Mekas must have believed in improvisation as the key for the performer to obtain the truth of the character, because he must react naturally as he is encountered with new ideas, circumstances, and other stimuli. And thus Mekas was supportive of the films that used such spontaneous improvisation.

4. Even though Jack Smith did not use found footage in Flaming Creatures, what are some similarities between Flaming Creatures and Joseph Cornell’s Rose Hobart?

Flaming Creatures ironically recreates, "liberates", and transforms Hollywood stereotypes of the "pseudo-Arabian world of Maria Montez films." It completely dicards the narrative conventions so highly prized in the typical Hollywood film thereby releasing it's purist, autonomous attributes as does Rose Hobart.

5. What are some of the visual influences on Flaming Creatures, and according to Sitney how are the scenes organized?

Flaming Creatures was influenced by the visual truth and the exotic locations of the Maria Montez films, Smith believeing that the truth of an actor is revealed through its being unconvincing in its depiction of a character. In his perspective upon textures, light and shadow, and, it hermaphroditic eroticism in Flaming Creatures Jack Smith was influenced by the films of von Sternberg.

Callie Angell, “Andy Warhol, Filmmaker”

6. How does Angell characterize the first major period of Warhol’s film making career? What are some of the films from this period?

Angell characterizes Warhol's first major period in filmmaking as minimalist. This period includes Sleep, Kiss, Haircut, Blow Job, Eat, Empire and Henry Geldzahier.

7. What role did the Screen Tests play in the routines at the Factory and in Warhol’s filmmaking?

The Factory became basically a studion for Screen Tests, and Screen Tests became a sort of visual guest book for the Factory. With the period's extreme intertest in Warhol's artistic practices, Screen Tests recorded portraits of "artists, film-makers, writers and critics, gallery owners,actors, dancers, socialites, pop music stars, poets, and, of course, Factory regulars and Superstars." the Screen Tests were an important aspect of Warhol's portrait concept and the expansion of his film practice into a continuous, cumulative mode of serial production. Warhol also used the reels select stars for his films and recycled them into some of his other films.

8. How does Angell characterize the first period of sound films in Warhol’s filmmaking career. What are some of the films from this period?

Well, Andy began exploring scripted action which he often introduced "destabalizing element". These films were one reel continuous 33 minute shot that treated the film as a performance space where the final result was the fully finished product. Vinyl was one of these films.